Oriental Encounters Part 20

Laughing, he seized me by the arm and bade me come with him. We went a little way into the wood, and there he showed me three Druze tombs deep in the shade of ilex trees--small buildings made of stone and mud, like little houses, each with an opening level with the ground, and a much smaller opening, like a window, at the height of a man's elbow.

'Thou seest?' cried my tutor. 'Those are graves. The openings on the ground were made too large, and jackals have got in and pulled the bodies out. The men who made those graves are foolish people, who have wandered from the truth. They think the spirits of the dead have need of food and light, and also of a hole for crawling in and out. I heard thee ask thy servant for a match just now. Come, I will show thee where to find one always.'

He led me to the nearest tomb, and thrust my hand into the little hole which served as window. It touched a heap of matches which he bade me take and put into my pocket, saying:

'It is not a theft, for the matches have been thrown away, as you might say. Those foolish people will suppose the dead have struck them. They used to put wax candles and tinder-boxes with them in the niches, but when these sulphur matches came in fas.h.i.+on, they preferred them for economy. When I am working in this wood I take no fire with me, being quite sure to find the means of lighting one.

Praise be to Allah for some people's folly!'

I thanked him for the wrinkle, and went back to join Ras.h.i.+d, who was exclaiming with the others over our deception. But everyone agreed that the mistake was natural for men bewildered in the darkness of the night.

CHAPTER XXV

MURDERERS

Ras.h.i.+d and I were riding down to Tripoli, and had long been looking for a certain 'kheymah' or refreshment booth beside the road, which an enterprising Christian of that town had opened in the summer months for the relief of travellers. When at length we came in sight of it, we saw a crowd of men reposing on the ground before its awning. We soon lost sight of them again in a ravine, and it was not till we were close upon them, climbing up the other bank, that I remarked that most of them were shackled and in charge of a small guard of Turkish soldiers.

'Criminals upon their way to the hard labour prison,' said Ras.h.i.+d.

'What have they done?' I asked, as we dismounted.

He strolled across and put a question to their escort, then returned and told me:

'They are murderers.'

After that information it surprised me, while we ate our luncheon, to observe their open faces, and to hear them laugh and chatter with their guards. Already I had learnt that crime in Eastern countries is not regarded altogether as it is with us; that Orientals do not know that shrinking from contamination which marks the Englishman's behaviour towards a breaker of his country's law. But I was unprepared for this indulgence towards a gang of murderers. It interested me; and, seeing that Ras.h.i.+d was talking with them in a friendly way, I gathered there was nothing to be feared from their proximity, and myself drew near when I had finished eating, and gave them cigarettes.

They thanked me loudly. The smile of pleasure on each face expressed a childlike innocence. One only sat apart in gloom, conforming in some measure to my preconceived idea of what a murderer upon his way to prison ought to look like. I noticed with surprise that this one wore no chain. I went and touched him on the shoulder. It was only then that he looked up and saw that I was wis.h.i.+ng him to take a cigarette.

He did so quickly, and saluted me without a word.

One of the others said in tender tones:

'Blame him not, O my lord, for he is mad with sorrow. He is more luckless than the rest of us--may Allah help him! He killed the person he loved best on earth--his only brother.'

'Then it is true that you are murderers?' I asked, still half-incredulous.

'By Allah, it is true, alas! and we are paying for it by a year's enslavement.'

'A year! No more than that,' I cried, 'for killing men?'

'And is it not enough, O lord of kindness? It is not as if we had killed men from malice or desire of gain. We killed in sudden anger, or, in the case of three among us, in a faction-fight. It is from Allah; and we ask forgiveness.'

'How did that man kill?' I questioned, pointing to the apathetic figure of the fratricide, which attracted my imagination by its loneliness.

'He suffered persecutions from a rich man of his village, who was his rival for the favour of a certain girl--so it is said. Those persecutions maddened him at times. One day when he was mad like that, his brother came to him and spoke some word of blame upon another matter. He killed him, as he might have killed his wife and children or himself, being in that state of mind devoid of reason.

When he awoke and saw what he had done, he wished to kill himself.'

'It is from Allah! His remorse is punishment,' exclaimed Ras.h.i.+d. 'Why should he go to prison? He has had enough.'

'n.o.body of this country would have thought of punishment for him,'

replied the spokesman of the murderers, with rueful smile. 'But his brother was the servant of a foreign merchant--a Greek from overseas, I think it was--who put the business in his Consul's hands, and so----' The speaker clicked his thumbnail on his white front teeth to signify finality. 'But the poor man himself does not object; it seems indeed that he is glad to go with us. Perhaps by labour and harsh treatment he may be relieved.'

As there were still provisions in our saddle-bags, Ras.h.i.+d, by my command, divided them among the company, the soldiers and the murderers alike, who were delighted. It was a merry party which we left behind, with the exception of the fratricide, who ate the food, when it was set before him, ravenously, but said not a word.

'May Allah heal him!' sighed the other murderers. 'Our Lord remove this shadow from his mind!'

Ras.h.i.+d and I pursued our way on an interminable path meandering in zig-zags down through brushwood, which smelt sweet of myrtle and wild incense. I tried to make him understand that he had quite misled me by the term he had applied to men who had been guilty of no more than manslaughter. The distinction had to be explained with much periphrasis, because the Arabic word 'Catil' means a slayer, and is given indiscriminately to all who kill.

He caught my meaning sooner than I had expected.

'Ah!' he said. 'Your Honour thought from what I said that they were "cutters of the road,"[7] or hired a.s.sa.s.sins, who kill men for gain.

Those are the greater criminals, whose punishment is death. Few such exist among us. Here a robber will seldom kill a man unless that man kills him.' [I translate literally] 'when it is just retaliation; and as for hired a.s.sa.s.sins, I have known several of them in my time, and they are not bad people, but unfortunate, having fallen early in the power of cruel and ambitious men. Most of the killing in this country is done without a thought, in anger or mad jealousy.'

'Is it for man to judge them?' he exclaimed, with a high shrug, when I remarked upon their friendly treatment by the Turkish guards. 'They are punished by authority down here, so we are better; but afterwards, when comes the Judgment of the Lord, we may be worse. It is hard upon those men we met just now. They go to prison, most of them, because they were not rich enough to pay the sum demanded as the price of blood. For men of wealth, or who have rich relations, it is easy to compound the matter for a sum of money, in return for which the dead man's relatives regard his death as due to natural causes, and forswear revenge. It is hard, I say, upon those men we met just now; and especially upon the man who slew his brother--may Our Lord console him!'

A few days later I was strolling in the town and happened to pa.s.s by the public gaol. In the middle of the gate, behind some iron bars, a wretched man stood shaking a tin can, in which some small coins rattled, and calling on the pa.s.sers-by for alms for the poor prisoners. A little group of English tourists--a gentleman and two fair ladies--came that way, led on by a resplendent dragoman. They stared at the wild figure at the prison gate.

'You like to give a trifle to the brisoners?' inquired the guide.

'What are they in for?' asked the gentleman.

'Murders, I guess, mostly,' shrugged the dragoman.

'Certainly not,' replied the gentleman, with indignation.

I ventured to approach and tell him that they were not murderers in our sense of the word, and that they depended for a bare subsistence upon public charity. The only thanks I got were a cold stare from the man, a fastidious grimace from the two ladies, and an 'Oh, indeed!'

so arrogant in tone that I retired discomfited. My ill-success may be attributable to the fact that I was wearing a 'kufiyeh' and 'acal' and so appeared to them as what is called a 'native.'

I myself have always, since that day, felt it my duty to give alms to murderers in Eastern lands.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] _i.e._, Highwaymen.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE TREES ON THE LAND

My search for an estate provided us with an excuse for visiting all sorts of out-of-the-way places, and sc.r.a.ping acquaintance with all sorts of curious people. In some villages we were greeted with unbounded glee; in others with a sullen, gruff endurance far from welcome. But, though the flavour of reception varied, we were everywhere received with some degree of hospitality, and shown what we desired to see. Thus we surveyed a great variety of properties, none of which fulfilled my chief requirements. I wanted both a house in which I should not feel ashamed to live, and cultivable land enough to yield a revenue; and the two together seemed impossible to find, at least for the sum of money which was placed at my disposal.

One piece of land attracted us so much that we remained in the adjacent village a full week, returning every day to wander over it, trying to see if it could not be made to fit my needs. It consisted of a grove of fine old olive trees, with terraces of fig and mulberry trees and vegetables, spread out to catch the morning sun upon a mountain side sloping to a wooded valley walled by rocky heights.

Water was there in plenty, but no house to speak of; the three small, cube-shaped houses on the property being in the occupation (which amounts to owners.h.i.+p) of workers of the land, who, according to the custom of the country, would become my partners. Upon the other hand, the land was fairly cheap, and after paying for it, I should have a balance with which I might begin to build a proper house; for, as Suleyman remarked, 'here all things are done gradually. No one will expect to see a palace all at once. Begin with two rooms and a stable, and add a fresh room every time that you have forty pounds to spare.'